


Measure of Strength

by sadspockpanda



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AtLA Secret Santa 2012, F/M, Gen, The Zutara is prerelationship, shortfic, the southern raiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 02:25:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadspockpanda/pseuds/sadspockpanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic comprised of three related drabbles. 1) Katara deals with forgiving Yon Rha, fearing that her brother will think she made the wrong choice. 2) Zuko and Katara bond over their fieldtrip and Katara's recent forgiving of him. 3) Sokka asks Zuko to not give him the oogies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measure of Strength

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the AtLA Secret Santa. My giftee is mrs-uchihaha, who wanted: "A Zutara, Katara/Sokka sibling, or just Zuko, and Katara introspective fic. Any one of those would be amazing! Anyway! Set in the Western Air Temple or Ember Island, please. I really don’t have a prompt because I don’t want to restrict you (I know it rustles my jimmies sometimes when I have to follow strict guidelines and can’t just do it spontaneously). Sooo…yeah, that’s pretty much it. Oh! And humor! I love a good laugh in a fic :)". Hopefully, this is close enough to what she was wanting. :)

“Sokka. I couldn't... I got there and I was so ready to hurt him, to make him pay for what he did to Mom.” Katara looked at her hands, she couldn't look at Sokka while she told him about her trip. She couldn't look him the eye, could only look at her hands and try not to shake too much. “I could have killed him, Sokka. I could have. I could-”

She had been blind with rage and revenge. She could have used her blood bending. She knew she was powerful enough to do it during the daytime. It would have been far weaker than what she'd need to control his entire body, like she had that Captain. But she could have done enough to kill him. To force enough blood into his lungs that he'd drown in what was meant to give life. She could have stopped his heart long enough to kill him. Even if she couldn't have, she could have still killed him. With water. With ice.

Everyone assumed that fire, burning fire, held the most rage. Fire was the element of destruction, of death, of unstoppable, untamed wrath. But Katara knew that water could be the same, could be worse. Far better to die by fire than ice.

“I wanted to kill him. I wanted to see the life drain out of him.” She couldn't hide the trembling anymore. Just yesterday, she had turned her heart to ice out of her need for vengeance. Now... She had forgiven, but it didn't make things any easier. Not when she had to tell her brother she couldn't do it. She felt her eyes begin to burn, tears threatening to spill out at any moment. It made her angry that she couldn't even hold it together for this. “He killed Mom. I could have killed him. No one would have thought badly of me. Just repaying a debt, right? But I couldn't. I'm... Sokka, I'm sorry. I was a coward.”

Sokka wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling his little sister as tight as he could to him. “You're not a coward, sis. Not at all. You did... You did good. You were brave. Far braver than I could ever have been. Sometimes, bravery is sparing someone's life, even if they deserve to die.”

Katara started crying, relieved that her brother was not angry at her. She wasn't sure she believed him when he called her brave; she still felt a bit like a coward, even if forgiveness had provided her mind a small relief after years of pain. But just hearing the words... That's all she needed. “Thanks, Sokka.”

“Dad will be proud when he hears, too. Because you're so much stronger than any of us.” Sokka leaned back just enough to kiss his sister's forehead. “And Mom would be proud too.”

She wasn't sure how long they stood there, and she certainly wasn't going to comment on the fact that Sokka had started crying himself.

\--- 

“So how did it go?” Zuko asked as Katara made her way back to camp, frowning slightly more as he noticed the tears in her eyes. Sokka and Katara had the kind of bond he had always wished he had had with his own sister. (But not everyone could be so lucky, and Zuko had a very bad relationship with Lady Luck.) That didn't mean there wasn't a chance that Sokka had reacted badly to the story. He really doubted that, that Sokka would be- could be- mad at his sister for forgiving rather than killing. There was always the chance though.

Katara sat across from him, the fire crackling between them. She forgave him, but that didn't mean she was going to willingly sit beside him. Forgiven, but the trust that would come between them would take a while yet to mend. Something about that hurt. Maybe the fact that it was he who hurt her so badly, had stabbed her in the back and that wound was scarring, but still fresh enough that there could be so little trust. But he would not stop trying to heal that wound; he may not be a healer like Katara, but he would try.

“It went... a lot better than I expected. He told me that I was brave.” Katara pulled her knees up to her chest, watching the fire dance and spark. If fire hadn't destroyed so much of her world, she might like it better. Fire was warm. Fire was pretty. Fire... killed. She had to remember that. No, no. She could not _forget_ that, rather. The sight of her mom... It was scarred in her mind forever and no healer could make it go away.

“You are brave, Katara. Probably the bravest person I know.” Zuko said, dragging Katara out of her thoughts. Fire might destroy, but it could also forge. Weapons. Friends. Yes, fire was not all bad. Zuko and his Uncle were proof of that, even if it did take too long for the banished prince to realize the path of good.

“I've already forgiven you. You can stop trying to win me over with compliments.” She snorted, lifting a hand to wipe at her eyes. He was such a dork, she had come to realize. Not at all as terrifying as he had been when her adventure had first began. When he wasn't fighting, he seemed as harmless as a turtleduck. 

“No, I mean it. It takes real strength to look someone you should hate in the eyes and do the right thing by not killing them.” Zuko looked down, thinking back to when he betrayed his father. No, he hadn't betrayed his Father. The Fire lord had betrayed the world. And Fire lord Ozai had never been much of a father anyway. Never to him, the failure son. He looked up as he heard movement, expecting to see Katara leaving. He was surprised to see her moving around the fire towards him.

“We're supposed to be polar opposites.” Katara said as she sat beside him, pulling her knees back up to her chest. She was so close, but her body language was still closed off. But it was a start. She motioned between them, “Sun and moon. Fire and water.”

Zuko nodded, though he wasn't sure where she was going with this. He wasn't sure he'd ever understand her, not entirely.

“So if we're supposed to be so different... Then why are we so much alike?” Katara's brow furrowed, as though it was a foreign concept to her. She had felt a kinship with Zuko before, in Ba Sing Se, but he had betrayed them- betrayed her- then. And until recently, she thought the Zuko she had met in the catacombs had been fake, an act. But now... “If it wasn't for the war, we could have been friends a long time ago. Or if you hadn't been born the Fire lord’s son.”

“Or if you had been born in the Fire Nation?” Zuko added, looking up at her. How different things would be... “Wait... did you say we were friends now?”

Katara smiled slightly and looked at the ground, “Well, maybe not now. But we will be. So long as you keep up with the 'not a jerk anymore' thing.”

“I'll keep working on that, then. I'd hate for you to hate me again.” And he meant it. They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the fire dance and slowly die. As the flames turned into embers, Zuko, oh so hesitantly, wrapped an arm around the water bender’s shoulders, into a half-hug. She didn't pull away.  


\---

“You've been getting awfully huggy with my sister lately.” Sokka commented the next morning when they were packing, giving the fire bender the dirtiest look he could muster. But if he was going for intimidating, he missed the mark by several hundred feet. “Anything you need to tell me?”

Zuko gave him a confused look- and it certainly wasn't the first time he'd ever given Sokka that look- before shaking his head, “Did I miss the memo that said hugs were bad?”

“I just don't need to see huggies leading to smoochies is all. Especially not with my sister.” Sokka gave a mock glare- well, Zuko assumed it was a mock glare. Surely he didn't really think that he and Katara were going to get... smoochy-smoochy.

“She just got past the point where she wanted to kill me, don't think you have anything to worry about.” 

“You say that now, but one day, I'm going to turn around and oogies.” Sokka shuddered as though he were imagining something so disgusting, that no other word could describe it. And given how the Southern Water Tribe never seemed to have a problem with words, that was saying a lot.

“Oogies?”

“Yes! Oogies!” Sokka swung his arms wildly, to emphasize his point.

“What are... You know what, never mind.” He had learned better than to ask, because, as his Uncle had told him once or twice before, ignorance is bliss. That, and he doubted he'd understand if Sokka elaborated anyway.


End file.
